Britain's Space Strategy
How should the UK deal with military threats from space, in an increasingly dangerous multipolar world?
What if, tomorrow, the Russian rocket forces launched an anti-satellite weapon at a British Skynet satellite and destroyed it? How would we respond? Russia almost certainly has the capability to do this. They demonstrated a low Earth orbit direct ascents ASAT weapon in 2021, and reaching geostationary altitudes with such a weapon is not beyond their technical capabilities.
One thing we could not do is respond proportionately and shoot down a Russian satellite, as we do not have any ASAT weapons at all nor have ever conducted a test of such a weapon. Our options would be limited to escalation in some other domain, as the UK Space Command, in charge of our military capabilities in space, lack such counter-space capability.
A Joint Doctrine Publication from the Ministry of Defence in 2022 has this to say on the issue of counter-space, which is classifies as the offensive part of “space control” (page 34):
While traditionally viewed as a purely military undertaking, in an era of persistent competition, the integrated approach means that achieving a desired degree of space control can also be pursued through diplomatic, regulatory or legal channels. For example, the UK-sponsored United Nations (UN) resolution on reducing space threats notes the ‘need for all States to work together to reduce threats to space systems through the further development and implementation of norms, rules and principles of responsible behaviours’. Such diplomatic and potentially legal efforts to reduce space threats contribute to our freedom of action and therefore can be considered an element of an integrated space control strategy.
In other words, it is OK that we do not have any offensive space control abilities, if we just pass a UN resolution and set a good example, nobody will shoot at our satellites. The naivete of this is even more shocking in that it was written after the Russians tested their ASAT weapon, invaded Ukraine, and seized a British owned OneWeb satellite that they had been contracted to launch on a Soyuz rocket. Even at this point I would have said we were well past “norms”.
The Age of Constellations
It does not help in the above example that Skynet is, in spacepower terminology a “Big Juicy Target”. There are only a handful of satellites active at one time, and their stationary orbit means each one has a specific area of operation. A single ASAT strike would significantly degrade the network and be targeted at a specific geographical location. In contrast, 100 successful ASAT hits against Starlink satellites would do little to diminish the capability of the constellation, and what impact it did have would be global distributed as the satellites whizz past in LEO instead of hovering over one point at all times. Even without the ability to strike back, this sort of resilience would help, and the military utility of Starlink has been proven in Ukraine even despite (non-kinetic) attempts by the Russians to interfere with it.
The UK purchased a stake in OneWeb (Now merged with Eutelsat) which on the surface represents an investment in constellation technology - but it is worth bearing in mind these satellites are manufactured and launched in Florida, aboard SpaceX rockets. Our money is in the venture, but it does not represent an actual UK capability and the US could in principle cut us off at any point. This issue was demonstrated by the above mentioned seizure of a satellite by Russia - although our relations with the US are very unlikely to deteriorate that much, the point should have been made that outsourcing a critical capability has a risk associated with it.
Paths Forward
So what can we do? I’ve recently read this paper by Gabriel Elefteriu of the Council on Geostrategy regarding the strategic position of the UK in space. It’s main point is that we simply don’t spend nearly enough on spacepower, despite for several years both our adversaries and our allies substantially increasing their spending. Can we really compete in this domain for £600 million a year or so?
Gabriel also highlights as I have the dangerous level of dependence on allies, almost entirely the US, for critical capabilities. He writes:
Without greater investment in domestic spacepower, HM Government may find itself over-dependent on allies, leaving the country unacceptably exposed if those allies are unable to help in a crisis, or if alliance politics change over time. Given how important space is for the functioning of the British economy and military, accepting this risk is increasingly hard to justify.
The paper was published before the last US election, and light of recent political changes in the US and other events this seems fairly prescient.
Geopolitics is not a spectator sport. Outsourcing our critical capabilities may seem to have been a smart move, making our military cheap and freeing up lots of money to be poured into election-friendly things like healthcare and pensions. But now we are reaping what we have sown through such neglect.
The Storm Shadow missiles we have sent to Ukraine now cannot be used for precision strikes inside Russia, because the United States doesn’t want this to happen right now and they control the only space capabilities able to provide target information for the weapons. This has caused considerable upset in the UK, where people mostly want to help Ukraine keep fighting rather than be forced into an unfavourable peace, but the Americans can ultimately do what they want with their own satellites, and we don’t get a vote on that.
This is why I have decided to include a military aspect to my Penny For Space campaign. The goal of the campaign is to make the UK a serious space power, and military spending will have to be a part of that. Of course I’d rather we pour all available funds into building colonies in space, but the reality is that we also have to defend anything we put up there, and we are not yet in a position to do that.
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Well said. As an American, I think the UK should have its own independent space capability, including ASATs.
Blowing up LEO satellites might cause an exponential increase in space debris. https://palmerlabs.io So how would one effectively retaliate against a Russian attack without hitting the tipping point?